FAMILIES, BE WHO YOU ARE!
In
His teaching ministry, Jesus shocked not a few people by the new way He
presented things. He told the people, who cannot even mention the name
of God out of pious reverence, to address God by the most intimate of
names, “Abba”, i.e., “Father” or better, “Daddy.” He changed the
definition of things.
In the Gospel today, Jesus changed the definition of family. When told
that His mother and brothers were outside waiting for Him, He responded
by saying that “those who hear God’s Word and put it into practice” are
His mothers and brothers. In essence, Jesus relocated the definition of
family from shared consanguinity to shared practice and fidelity to the
Word of God. This is a centripetal redefinition. The movement is inward:
consistent, complementary and compatible with the Word of God.
Furthermore, Jesus’ redefinition is not a destruction of its usual
meaning but a deepening of it.
Today, the culture is also doing a redefinition of the family, but
in a way that is contrary to the Word of God. Family is no longer the
union of one male and one female, united and committed to one another in
a covenant of marriage that is forever. This definition of family is
very much rooted in Scripture and is a natural demand of the natural
moral law.
Family today is simply an adult-centered association and whatever they
want it to be, whoever and how many those adults are. The change is
artificial, whimsical and imposed. The movement is centrifugal, i.e., it
moves farther and farther away from the Word of God.
In his address at the opening of a three-day conference on
traditional marriage hosted at the Vatican, Pope Francis reiterated that
the family is “an anthropological fact… that cannot be qualified based
on ideological notions or concepts important only at one time in
history,” and founded on the natural and biblical “complementarity
between man and woman in marriage.”
Let us keep marriage and family rooted in the Word of God! Fr. Joel Jason
REFLECTION QUESTION: Is the Word of God an essential part of your family life?
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the Holy Family of Nazareth, keep every family under the beacon of Your protection. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment